EPA Seeks Funds for Cleanup : North Hollywood: Owners and operators of six industrial sites are suspected of polluting ground water.

Federal authorities have asked owners and operators of six industrial sites to pay $16.8 million for the cleanup of ground water in North Hollywood they are suspected of polluting, and have warned of a lawsuit unless a financial settlement is reached.

The money would reimburse the Environmental Protection Agency for the costs of building and running a water treatment plant since 1989, and would also pay for a wider investigation of chemical pollution that has idled dozens of municipal drinking water wells in the San Fernando Valley.

Agency officials, who held a two-day meeting with the companies in April, said they expect to resume negotiations in July, although no date has been set for the next meeting.

In a related development, the EPA on Thursday announced a plan to treat tainted ground water in Glendale at a cost of up to $60 million.

Areas of North Hollywood, Burbank and Glendale have been designated for cleanup under the federal Superfund cleanup program, due to lake-size plumes of tainted water that have invaded clusters of municipal wells. To varying degrees, Los Angeles, Burbank and Glendale have had to reduce use of ground water and buy more expensive replacement supplies from the Metropolitan Water District.

The culprits are cleaning solvents, particularly trichloroethylene and perchloroethylene, that have been widely used for dry cleaning and degreasing metal parts. The chemicals are thought to have been spilled or leaked by many companies over the years and to have seeped through the soil to ground water.

To recoup its costs in North Hollywood, the EPA in March sent demand letters for $16.8 million to 11 parties--six industrial firms and five owners of their sites.

“What we hope is for an acceptable settlement offer . . . to recover these past costs in North Hollywood,” said Chris Stubbs, a Superfund project manager with the EPA regional office in San Francisco.

The bill included nearly $5.6 million spent to design, build and run a ground water treatment plant that has been operating for about four years on Los Angeles Department of Water and Power property in North Hollywood. The plant in the 11800 block of Vose Street uses an aeration, or air stripping tower, to transform chemical contaminants from liquid to vapors that are trapped by air filters. The treated water is blended with other municipal supplies and served to customers.

The remainder of the bill--$11.2 million--was for past costs for ground water investigations in North Hollywood and elsewhere in the Valley.

The notices went to Allied-Signal Inc., E/M Corp., Pacific Steel Treating Co., and Fleetwood Machine Products Inc., all of North Hollywood; Hawker-Pacific Inc. of Sun Valley, and Lockheed Corp. in Burbank.

In a mailing to the companies last year, the EPA included two other North Hollywood firms--Remo Inc. and Raintree Buckles and Jewelry Inc.--as suspected polluters. However, the agency decided not to demand payment from them, said Stubbs, because “we didn’t feel our case was strong enough, based on the information we have now.”

Lawrence Bazel, lawyer for E/M Corp., which manufactures solid film lubricants, said his client will continue meeting with the EPA, but is confident it did not contribute to the North Hollywood pollution.

“We think this site is unusually difficult for EPA, because it’s not so clear where the contamination comes from,” Bazel said.

According to Bazel, the EPA’s own monitoring data shows that ground water, which flows with gravity, is more contaminated upstream than downstream of the E/M plant, indicating the company isn’t liable.

Although Bazel has made this argument to EPA officials, he said, “I guess it’s fair to say they weren’t entirely convinced.”

Allied-Signal officials, whose property is at 11600 Sherman Way, could not be reached for comment.

Lockheed spokesman Keith Mordoff said representatives of Lockheed and the other firms “have agreed to sit down and discuss these issues over the next several months.”

Lockheed, whose giant Burbank complex has been blamed for polluting ground water in Glendale and Burbank as well, could end up paying more for cleanup than all other firms combined.

But Lockheed has come under attack from some environmentalists and members of Congress because the firm stands to recover from taxpayers much of its cleanup costs. Most of Lockheed’s sales are to the Defense Department and other government agencies, and federal contracting rules permit recovery of business expenses, including environmental costs, from the government.

In a consent decree signed last year, Lockheed promised to implement and pay for most of the Burbank ground water cleanup, which is expected to cost more than $100 million.

And Lockheed is one of more than 50 Burbank and Glendale-area industries and site owners that the EPA says are “potentially responsible” for two large plumes of contaminated ground water in an industrial area of Glendale near the Golden State Freeway.

EPA officials said Thursday they have chosen a cleanup plan for Glendale that will feature two sets of extraction wells to remove contaminated ground water. The water will then be pumped to an air stripping plant to be purged of chemicals. As in Burbank and North Hollywood, it will then be chlorinated and blended with other municipal supplies and served to customers.

Agency officials expect the Glendale treatment system to operate for a dozen years and to cost $47 million to $60 million to design, build and run. It will purify about 5,000 gallons of water per minute, enough to serve the needs of about 25,000 people.

One consequence of ground water pollution has been idled wells, which in turn have caused ground water levels to rise. DWP officials fear the ground water could rise into the Los Angeles River channel and flow out of the Valley ground water basin--perhaps reducing their future entitlement.

The DWP is planning to install a ground water treatment system to lower the ground water table at its idled Pollock wells site south of Griffith Park.